Sentencing — reasonableness

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Sentencing — reasonableness

A sentencing court is not required to address a defendant’s argument that there is no empirical link between the quantity of drugs involved in an offense and the defendant’s culpability.

“Valdez argues also that the district court committed a procedural error by failing to address his argument at sentencing that no empirical evidence supports a link between the quantity of drugs involved in an offense and a defendant’s culpability. After properly calculating the applicable Guideline range, a sentencing judge may disagree with the Guidelines’ advice but is not required to do so. See United States v. Corner, 598 F.3d 411, 416 (7th Cir. 2010) (en banc); United States v. Huffstatler, 571 F.3d 620, 623 (7th Cir. 2009). And as a general rule, a sentencing judge must address a defendant’s principal non-frivolous arguments in mitigation. See United States v. Marin-Castano, 688 F.3d 899, 902 (7th Cir. 2012); United States v. Pulley, 601 F.3d 660, 667 (7th Cir. 2010). We have made clear, however, that where a defendant raises such a sweeping challenge to a Guideline provision as the use of drug quantity to help gauge culpability, the sentencing judge need not engage the argument as might be needed with a more specific challenge to how the Guideline provision applies to the particular defendant. See United States v. Schmitz, 717 F.3d 536, 541–42 (7th Cir. 2013); United States v. Garthus, 652 F.3d 715, 721 (7th Cir. 2011); United States v. Aguilar-Huerta, 576 F.3d 365, 367–68 (7th Cir. 2009). There was no procedural error.”

Affirmed.

13-1811 U.S. v. Valdez

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, St. Eve, J., Hamilton, J.